Japanese 'Samurai' Swords in Period European Eyes

[Music] hey folks mattiece in here scholar gladiatori so let's talk a little bit about Japanese swords but in a slightly different context than perhaps we normally do I got a context then early there's no video but you're used to me talking about swords like this ie sabers and often talk about obviously medieval swords and rapiers and small CIL's all these things but what I don't talk about very much these days although I did start out with videos talking about them ah katanas oh not really specifically katana so that's the first thing I want to say is a lot of people talk about katana to speak generically about Japanese swords but of course there are many different types of Japanese sword and for most of the certainly the first half of what we would call the medieval period they weren't using weapon that they knew is a katana they were using a weapon that was known as atashi but equally another weapon that was used at least as frequently possibly even more frequently than the katana was the wakizashi okay so we've got the tashi in the wakizashi which should be at least mentioned as often as the katana itself but obviously there are other iterations of Japanese swords as well that have some similarities and some differences Oh - Ino - II all of these types of things tanto of course for knife sized things but fundamentally they do share some characteristics now what has been spoken about in the past which I'm not gonna do here per se is talk about katana versus longsword katana versus rapier that's not what I'm here today okay and admittedly I did do videos about those kind of topics in the early days and I probably will do again at some point but the thing I really wanted to say is that rather than just comparing you know which is better you've got to remember that these existed particularly the katana in fact existed from the you know 14 15 16th century right the way through obviously to the 20th century they were still being used or carried at least in and used in world war ii and they were used extensively in the 18th and 19th centuries against europeans using swords like this and indeed again other people Indian Chinese all sorts of different nationalities using their own styles of swords now this does lead to the fact that these did encounter those swords now I have spoken about that in previous videos if you haven't seen those videos by all means go and search for Japanese swords or if you just search for the word Japanese in my videos or maybe katana in my videos then you will find those historical quotes but because the Japanese were obviously a nation but equally they had people from Japan were involved in piracy and trading and all sorts of other things which meant that they came into contact with other people and their swords therefore came into contact with other people literally and figuratively and lots of people wrote about these swords there are Chinese sources talking about these swords we could say that these swords influenced certainly Korean and probably to some degree Chinese swords as well they did even influenced European swords that's right now that's the bit that maybe not many people are aware of is that these swords were brought back to Europe in the 17th century and famously if we look at certain Dutch paintings you can actually see Japanese weapons particularly the swords usually focusing on the the hilts but not always in still life paintings from the Netherlands of the 17th century so these were items that were brought back to Europe why well were they used because they were super awesome ooba-dooba lightsaber swords that were cut through armor no they weren't they were brought back because they were admired for their artistic quality now that's something that I think confuses a lot of modern people because a lot of modern people have a lot of preconceptions I won't say misconceptions necessarily although some of them are but a lot of preconceptions about swords and that's largely due to modern media TV film computer games stuff like this where the sword is often a primary weapon it's often the primary weapon of a superhero or a computer game character but as regularly this channel will undoubtedly know by now if you've seen more than five of my videos as I often point out swords were very often not the primary weapon yes they often were primary weapon within a duel or in very specific scenarios but very often in war these were sidearms these were something that you predominantly carried around at your waist at your hip and they were things that didn't actually get used to nor for lots an average person living in the average man sword wearing man in the 17th century who walked around wearing let's say a rapier or a basket hilt a broadsword probably wouldn't use that sword in anger maybe ever in their lives but certainly not many times the people who were famous duelists and the people who did get into lots of fights or did service soldiers were proportionately fewer were proportionately less and that only made up a small proportion of their lives for the most part anyway so even even someone like Donald McBain for example in the 18th century who fought many duels he was extremely unusual in that the fact that he fought so many duels and it's remembered for that fact he was a you know he fought prize fights and all this kind of stuff so he's unusual but even he spent most of his time traveling around being a pimp doing all the things that he did that is right pimp I did say that and he predominantly therefore wore his sword so bringing this back into context of why are Japanese swords shown in European art particularly Netherlands art in the 17th century and I'm going to talk about later centuries in the second you have to remember that these represent many many things so when you're showing these allegorical still life paintings are showing qualities virtues observations on existence on life the meaning of you know why are we here and so a Japanese sword represents many things in art it represents Commerce Travel education the exotic you know perhaps it represents war and conflict as well it represents many many things within the artistic sphere but just from a cicles fear if we bring it back to us as kind of you know weird weapon people and we want to know why were you know why was the katana or any other type of Japanese sword wakizashi brought back to brought back to Europe at that time well it was for all of those reasons I've just mentioned but they were absolutely unquestionably recognized as good quality weapons now I have mentioned this before some people see me as a hater or someone who bashes on Japanese weapons that's not true at all I love Japanese weapons they are not - my primary love they're not what I focus on but they are peripheral love of mine and I have owned antiques in fact I have no antique Japanese pieces at the moment that I can think of but I have owned Japanese antique pieces and I certainly will do in the future in fact I'm um in the market at the moment for a nice particularly wakizashi of the let's say 17 18th century if I can find one but I very much admire them and you have to remember that Europeans did admire them for their quality of manufacture so there are certain things there as you all of you know I think watching this channel there are certain things about Japanese blade manufacturer which are quite if not unique quite special to Japan so the way that they make their actual steel to make the blades out of the way that they arranged the different types of Steel within the blade the way that they do the clay around the blade and then water quench the edge to produce a ham on there's many things that are peculiar in particular to Japanese blade manufacture and it has to be accepted and people historically did accept that the end result was a very very good quality blade I've quoted in one of the previous videos I'm sure you can find by searching the word Japanese for example in my videos as I've mentioned in a previous people did test their swords against Japanese swords because they were known to be hard at the edge and good quality so they made good very good quality blades that's not to say all their blades were good quality incidentally just a slight tangent there are crap quality Japanese swords that were dished out to the to the spearmen and Mino matchlock men and this kind of stuff don't let's not forget that they did have sort of mass-produced rubbish weapons as well but they're good quality blades were superb now the thing that I really wanted to mention before I wrap this video up is that we often focus on the blades of Japanese weapons but there are some other peculiar things about their design which meant that they were admired by Europeans now one of those things is because they have relatively two other types of swords in the world they have a relatively narrow blade this way but a thick blade this way okay the end result is that whilst they are generally for their length a little bit on the heavy side certainly compared to European swords and not all but most Indian swords they are quite blade heavy but they're very very stiff and they have a usually a single bevel leading to the cutting edge and that means that they are very good cutters okay now one of the reasons as I've said in previous videos one of the reasons that katanas are good cutters is therefore giving a stiff blade is very very forgiving if I just put this down for a second and pick up a saber this saber is actually lighter in the blade I don't know if it's literally lighter in weight but it actually or mass rather but it feels lighter in the hand because it has more distal taper and it has a flexible flat blade like most other European swords most Chinese swords Indian swords and so on at the Japanese sword and yes this is a replica but it's not a bad replica and it is it doesn't serve to illustrate the point are generally speaking that do not flex like that for two reasons number one they're not spring tempered in order to do that okay generally speaking a Japanese sword if you bend it it will stay bent it's got a very hard edge and it's got a relatively soft back okay so it's delivering a hard edge to the target but it's not a spring in the way that most European swords are but secondly the reason I can't flex this very easily is because it's very thick now a thick blade that doesn't flex is forgiving in the cut if a complete noob takes a Japanese katana tashi wakizashi whatever a wax a target like a baseball bat they're probably going to cut quite well so they are good cutters for people to perform good cutting technique quite easily okay that's the first thing and that's whilst I said we're not gonna talk about the blade for a second and that is the blade that's something that we often talk about blade quality in Japanese swords but that is something that's to do with the shape of the blade that's quite favorable to self-defence or just you know having a weapon that functions well and on that note I should mention that there are French self-defence sources which advise as a self-defense weapon using a whack esashi that's right and these in 19th century so so the wakizashi for example was recognized as a good self-defense implement in 19th century Europe but to my own particular studies as many of you know I study the manual lessons in Sabre from 1880 by John Musgrave wait now wait talks about sword design and he mentions Japanese swords now what's interesting about wait is that he had many many years well from 1840 to 80 like forty years of experience in swordsmanship and fencing with some of the best swordsmen of the day in Britain but also many of them were French some Italians and some Germans as well and he had a huge amount expiry of experience he knew people like Hutton and he had access to lots of swords he knew lots about swords and sort of design and he'd clearly seen and experienced Japanese swords know what's interesting is when he when weight is talking about his perfect sword design he doesn't actually talk about the jab but he doesn't talk he talks about in the blade but he doesn't talk about the Japanese blade at all when he refers Japanese swords he refers specifically to the grip now that I think is really interesting because we talk so much about our you know how good our Japanese swords compared to other things and we focus on how well they cut we focus on the weight the point of balance we focus on the quality of the blade the hardness of the edge all of these things but we very very rarely talk about the grid okay now actually grits haha something that probably I don't talk about anything like enough on my channel in general people who are talking about knives or swords or anything - tend to fixate and focus and perhaps fetishize to an extent the blade okay and understandably the blade is the bit that does the job but you've got a whole that hunt you okay that blade is not going to do anything without a human user on the other end well I suppose you could give it to a robot but we won't we'll talk about those Japanese robots they're developing to train people in swordsmanship later but I don't trust them but grips okay so the Japanese grip is actually very very nice and it's actually very complex as well if you think about it so you've got wood core around a very thick tang secured by one or two or sometimes more pegs but usually just one peg through and that is a very interesting method of manufacture it's incredibly simple when you think about it and yet it's incredibly strong because you end up with the tang that's almost as wide as the grip itself the grip fits about around that tang a bit like a scabbard fits around the blade and it's held with one peg now you might think that's weak well presumably that's why some Japanese swords have two pegs instead of one but either way I've never personally even heard of one of those failing I'm sure they do occasionally but every type of health fails occasionally so it's a very secure method of attachment but the actual grip on the outside itself is also quite complex you first of all you've got inside here you've got some a tour or shagreen essentially so on a European sword we've got the same it is shark skin okay now sharks game has some benefits it's essentially kind of waterproof maybe not with antiques that have existed for a couple of hundred years thereafter a couple of hundred years they can get damp underneath them but generally speaking it's waterproof grip if you get blood on it if you get water on it it doesn't become slippery it's almost sandpaper like in its texture it gives a fantastic grip but interestingly the Japanese have used at underneath and then they wrap essentially cord usually silk silk called over the top very tightly and that in a certain twisted way that you'll all be familiar with that with that pattern that actually provides a fantastic grip on top of the the shark scanner it could be some mice that maybe originally the shag marine or shark skin was put around the grip for gripping purposes as it is on European swords and indeed on many Chinese swords and I think that's probably likely and that in the evolution of the Japanese grip that the cord was added on later to give even more kind of grip but as as weight as drum most great weight points out the end result is a really fantastic grippy grip you've essentially got an absorbent thing the cord over the top of a non-absorbent thing the shag green so you don't have to worry about damp penetrating the entire grip that will penetrate the cord at the top but cord is very grippy it's very good to grip and has to be said the Japanese sword grip is a fantastic grip that gives a really really good hold the only criticism that weight makes is not actually about the material structure of the grip but he doesn't like the fact that katana grips curved in the same line as the blade that's a that's a design point and of course it is a particular feature of of Japanese swords of the way that the blades and tangs are made but also the way that they're used which is completely different of course to a European Sabre of the 19th century and usually as you well know Sabre grips tend to be straight or if anything even curved forward towards the cutting edge rather than away from the cutting edges of Japanese sword us but shape aside the structure and the construction of a Japanese grip is great so to conclude Europeans whether it was for artistic and constructional or even status and kind of what it showed about you as a person for those reasons they definitely liked Japanese weapons in the 17th century we know that even going through into the 19th century they liked these weapons aesthetically for decorative purposes but also they respected them functionally again in terms of the structure and hardness and quality of the blades and sharpness of the blade but also and this often gets overlooked the construction and design and quality of the grips and that's not even mentioning the decorative things when we get into the Super's so you know collecting the guards or supers became a whole thing in itself and hence in the modern antiques well you can buy supers in antique auctions because they were collected by many many collectors in the 19th and 20th century in Europe who recognized the beauty of their decoration but also finally just to remind you as I have mentioned in previous videos in terms of the use of these swords as well the grips and the blades together they were absolutely respected by Europeans and the use of these swords in the Japanese Russian war at the turn of the 19th 20th century or just at the beginning of the 20th century in the various Wars and piratical events of the 19th century these swords were encountered and highly respected and of course famously in the Second World War the swords were encountered and again feared and respected for what they were they became a symbol of many things at that point in us is famously known many of them were surrendered at the end of World War 2 and that's why they ended up in countries like Britain and America so to summarize Japanese swords have a lot of things going for them but that's not what I'm talking about here what I'm talking about here is the fact that historical European and American people absolutely respected and admired these swords for many many reasons not just the blade not just the grip not just the decorative thing not just the status and the what they represented artistically and in every other way but for the whole package so the Japanese sword has quite rightly passed into the modern world as a thing of legend I suppose and very iconic for good reason cheers folks thanks for watching we've got extra videos on patreon please give our Facebook a like and subscribe if you haven't already cheers folks

Channel: scholagladiatoria

Views: 514,873

Rating: 4.8372626 out of 5

Keywords: samurai sword, katana, japanese sword, kenjustu, historical fencing

Id: kYldSZ-qEQQ

Length: 19min 59sec (1199 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 03 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/AlexanderZachary]

The venerable Matt Easton describes some of the prevailing opinions of Japanese swords held in Europe during the 17th, 18th, and 19th century.

In support of his claim that the Katana is a “forgiving” sword that less practiced swordsman can still successfully cut with, I present “Adolescent Girl‘s First Time Cutting”.

[u/Praetorian80]

So he’s meant to speak the word like he’s Japanese? He’s English. He says it with an English accent. Nothing wrong with that.